Inhumanoids

Inhumanoids
Logo image from title sequence.
Created by	Flint Dille
Starring	Michael Bell William Callaway Ed Gilbert Chris Latta Neil Ross Richard Sanders Susan Silo
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	13
Production
Running time	24 minutes
Production company(s)	Hasbro Sunbow Productions Marvel Productions
Distributor	Claster Television
Release
Original network	local syndication
Original release	000000001986-09-21-0000September 21 – December 14, 1986 (1986-12-14)

Inhumanoids is an animated series and Hasbro toy property in 1986. In the tradition of other Hasbro properties such as Transformers and G.I. Joe, the show was produced by Sunbow and Marvel Productions and animated in Japan by Toei Animation. Inhumanoids tells the story of the scientist-hero group, Earth Corps, as they battle a trio of subterranean monsters called the Inhumanoids with the aid of elemental beings, the Mutores.

The Inhumanoids series did not begin as a conventional 22-minute cartoon, but rather as a slate of six-to-seven-minute shorts that aired as part of the collective Super Sunday half-hour block alongside other Marvel/Sunbow series, Jem and the Holograms, Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines and Robotix. Although Bigfoot had only nine episodes, the other shows ran to 15 episodes, telling a complete story across their numerous installments, which were later edited together to form "movies" that were released on video. Out of the four, Jem proved to be the most popular and was eventually made into an ongoing series that lasted for 65 episodes.

The story begins with the discovery of a monstrous creature encased in an amber monolith buried in Big Sur national park, which is recovered by the government-funded Earth Corps, a geological sciences research team. The finding spurs corrupt industrialist Blackthorne Shore to clandestinely uncover a second monster buried elsewhere — a giant vine-like creature called Tendril, who attacks the amber block's public unveiling in San Francisco to release the macabre colossus trapped within, D'Compose. They rampage through city streets before fleeing into the watery darkness of the bay.

Earth Corps member Liquidator returns to Big Sur in search of further clues to the origin of these monsters, whereupon he discovers a race of sentient trees, the Redwoods, who explain that they are members of a subterranean population known as Mutores, and that their kind sealed the evil Inhumanoids Tendril and D'Compose beneath the Earth ages ago. The malevolent Inhumanoid leader, Metlar, remains imprisoned below the surface, paralyzed by the magnetic field of a Mutore duo named Magnokor.